It's Only Half Past (The Point of Oblivion)
by equalopportunityobsessor
Summary: Written for a prompt on AvengerKink: " think it's generally agreed that all of Steve's senses are powered up by the serum? He can hear people whispering on the other side of the room, probably sees a hell of a lot further, etc. But there are definite downsides. How does Steve control this side effect of the serum?"


_[Warning: descriptions of sensory deprivation. But not in a kinky or torture-y way. If anyone feels that this may or may not squick them out, please feel free to Google ''floatation therapy' for an idea of what you might have to look forward to. Please note, I am not a doctor, nor do I play on one TV, so I'm not really sure if this is the best treatment method... Enjoy!]_

Of course, the first time a villain manages to construct a weapon that can actually do more than put a dent in Captain America, it completely incapacitates him.

Steve had just swung around to smash the Villainous Minion coming up behind him in the face with his shield when the projectile is launched – Steve hears it coming, knows it will connect with his neck, but the momentum from the spin he's still in the middle of means he can't dodge quickly enough –

It collides with his suit right at the flexible joint between neck and shoulder with a sharp _smack_ not dissimilar to being hit with a paintball – Steve thinks the armour has saved his life once again, and is about to dismiss the collision as 'superficial', when everything happens at once.

There's a flash_bang_, like a firecracker going off and whatever hit him burns hotter than that time he grabbed the end of a freshly-fired rifle; There's a tiny prick in his neck, like the time Tony made him buy a suit and one of the tailors dropped a pin and he stepped on it; There's a shrill vibration in the air that reminds him of the time he stood too close to the transmitter of Howard Stark's sonar machine.

Steve hits the ground so suddenly that he can't tell why. He's on the ground, curled up in the fetal position, and he can't even think.

Then, he starts to _feel_. Clearly, his head has exploded, his brain is scattered across the cement, because there is _no_ _way_ to be in this much pain and be _alive_.

Steve screams, but cuts himself off quickly because that only makes things _worse_.

His eyes are closed, but the residual light filtering through his eyelids is brighter than standing a foot from a floodlight, more painful than falling into the Sun. The sound of his blood thrumping through the tiny capillaries in his ear canal is clearly above 85 decibels, and Steve _has_ to go deaf soon, he can't live like this –

"Captain, status! Captain!-"

Steve screams and cries, sobbing and pleading, praying that it will stop that everything will stop. He raises one hand to his ear, the one that contains the smoldering land mine, clawing at the side of his head with his deadened fingers, anything to get it to stop.

"Captain America is down, I repeat, Captain America is down and he's not getting up, did anyone see-"

"Shut up, Clint, now! Everyone, radio silence!"

The horrible, clawing cacophony finally cuts off, and Steve sighs in relief but the pain of even that is too much and his brain continues to boil inside his skull.

His uniform, the suit that usually feels like safety and home and purpose is _shredding_ his skin, tearing him open so that it can press against every single one of his nerve endings. His mouth is on fire, and the trace remnants of mustard from lunch feel like acid burning through his gums and tongue. And the smells, god the smells, the city streets smell like urine and feces and burnt rubber and death and decay and –

There's a thunderous _crash_ far, _far_ too close, and Steve screams again, trying to flinch away from the sound, both hands clapped over his ears, since tearing them off hasn't worked yet –

Something cold and harsh and smooth presses over his eyes, and though the conflicting sensations torment the exquisitely sensitive nerves in his face, the terrible light is _gone._

There's a tinny crackle in one ear, and Steve tries to roll away again, but he finds himself trapped by more of the cool metal, and something that feels like a hand but also like a burning coal falls over the hand clapped against the ear not pressed to the ground.

"Steve." The whisper is almost too quiet to be heard, and entirely too painful to be tolerated. Steve whimpers pitifully. "Steve, you're gonna be okay. I know what's wrong, but I don't know what caused it, but I can fix it, okay? Things are going to be really really awful for a while, but then they'll get better, I promise, _I promise you, _Steven Rogers, I can fix this, so just trust me, okay?"

Steve never stops trying to get away from the voice, convinced his body will implode under the increasing pressure of the short vibrations, but he hears every word and clings helplessly to that promise.

Suddenly, the icepick guarding his eyes is gone and so is the flame against his hand, and everything is louder and closer and brighter and – His own hands are pulled ruthlessly away from the sides of his swollen and cracking head – He sobs and tugs against the wire slicing through his wrists – his hands are pressed together and put in a vice that tries to crush his bones –

Something closes over his head like one of those hoods people put on falcons, and though the seal around his neck isn't perfect, and the pressure against his scalp is drilling into his brain, most of the light and sound and smell in Steve's immediate vicinity disappear – His whole body collapses in relief, and he is content to remain in a shivering pile exactly where he is until he dies.

Except someone else, apparently, has other plans for him. Two white-hot bars slide under him, one behind his shoulders and one beneath his knees, and they sear into his flesh, which begins to sizzle and blister. He's braced against a freezing pillar, the kind of cold that burns when you touch it, the kind of cold that turns flesh black wherever the two touch, the kind of cold that fills lungs and ruptures cells and stops time –

_Tony_, a tiny, shrivelled and quivering corner of his brain supplies, and even that short rational thought is exhausting._ It's Tony. He's carrying us. Tony. _

_Tony has us._

Steve doesn't pass out, not for a second of his body's mutiny. His senses, which have an absolute detection threshold 37% higher than the average human's on a good day, are running amok. His brain is collapsing under the sheer weight of the sensory input it is being asked to perceive.

The hood covering his head keeps him sheltered, keeps him trapped, but every new stimulus that sneaks past his cage assaults his weary mind, and Steve's battered body fights it as hard as it can – which isn't very hard, not anymore.

Things change around him – the burningfreezingcrushingtearing hardness disappears from around him, and a new bendingpinchingsearingchilling surface appears beneath him – but Steve can't track it, can't track himself.

There is a sudden, roaring vibration beneath him, threatening to crack the world apart and take Steve with it. Steve whimpers and flinches, shying away but there isn't anywhere to go it's everywhere and he can't escape he doesn't know where –

Steve crashes into something that feels like the burningfreezing of before, but without the crushingtearing, and that's not so bad considering, so he presses himself to it. The burningfreezing gives, disappears, panicking Steve before it is back, folding around Steve and cradling him. The rippingcracking doesn't stop, keeps attacking him, and now the burningfreezing is gouging at his shoulder and hip. Steve whips his head around, trying to find a way to hide a way to turn a way to run – his skull knocks into the crushingtearing hood he's been locked in, and he's being suffocated –

Steve tries to free himself, but his wrists are caught by garrote wires made of electricity that slice through his bones whenever he struggles. The burningfreezing bites him a little harder, shakes him once, firmly, forcing him to settle. Steve obeys, sagging into the agony that doesn't let him go.

The bear trap around his hands doesn't let go either, but his hands aren't being run through a meat grinder so he lets them be.

Time passes (or maybe it doesn't) and then he's moving again, the shockinggougingshreddingscorching entangling him and ripping him away from the burningfreezing, ripping him apart. His tongue bumps against his teeth, and taste explodes through the thin flesh of his mouth, hissing and spitting like he's swallowed a mouthful of bleach.

Steve struggles, writhing away from the trap, desperate to escape – he was fighting, he knows he was and now he's not but he hasn't won he can't have won because it doesn't hurt after they win those are the rules and _everything hurts_ so he can't have won so he's still fighting he's supposed to be fighting he needs to –

_I promise you, Steven Rogers, I can fix this. _

He settles himself with a force of will he didn't know he possessed any more. The shockinggougingshreddingscorching doesn't let him go, but it does start to fade, stops trying to actively tear him apart or melt him down.

He's set down on a chilly, spiked surface and abandoned. No light seeps in around the bottom of his hood, no sound either, but there is a faint tang to the air that scratches at his nose and lungs.

A faint thrum shakes through the floor and shatters through his bones, and Steve moans as he tries to curl away from it. The burningfreezing circles his arm out of nowhere, so he screams and rolls, trying to escape. It doesn't let him go, and the sound of his own scream reverberating inside the hood is nauseatingly painful.

The hood is yanked away, and Steve gags, expecting a new assault of painful stimulus on his tattered body and mind. There isn't anything, besides a new hollowness to the tiniest of sounds, but that doesn't stop Steve's body from puking, the cascade of his internal muscles into reverse peristalsis too late to stop.

Throwing up has never been more painful, not even when the whole of his body was as big around as one of his legs is now. His head feels disconnected from his body, like it's exploding and burning down to ash at the same time. His limbs are empty and trembling and the _smell_, God, the smell –

The burningfreezing holds him steady, around his chest and across his forehead, and Steve is grateful, even if it hurts.

As soon as Steve stops puking, can feel a shaky flimsiness in his stomach replace the frantic contracting, the burningfreezing hauls him back, away from the smell. Steve curls into it gratefully, whimpering.

"Steve." The whisper disperses through the air, echoing in the giant space before filtering to Steve. "I'm going to help you, remember? I promised."

_Tony. Tony promised._

"It might be scary though, you're not… I'm going to block light from entering your eyes, and sound from your ears, and I'm going to get rid of anything you're tasting or smelling… I'm going to take you out of your suit and try to make sure that nothing is touching you at all, including me."

_Tony. No –_

"But I'm not going to leave you, okay? I promise, I will be right exactly here for exactly as long as you need me to be. Okay? Trust me."

_Tony. Trust you. I trust you._

"Nod if you think you can do this for me."

Steve can't quite tell where he is, where his head is, where exactly his body is (_Proprioception, _the snivelling corner of his brain mutters in a voice that sounds remarkably like Bruce's,_ You've lost another sense – the awareness of the placement of your body in space_) but he tries to twitch his head in the right direction.

"Good boy."

The burningfreezing tugs him around until it's pressed all up and down his back, and then settles on his head. Starting from just below his eyes, it starts to peel his skin off, pulling it off his face upwards, yanking his scalp off. Steve screams and screams and screams, but he doesn't move (he doesn't think he moves) because he knows that this is just Tony (he thinks that this is just Tony) and that Tony will help him.

(Tony will help him.)

His skin is gone, and it feels _so much better_, like he can breathe again, at least a little bit. Something presses over one eye, and then the other, something warm but not hot, something moist but not wet. It moulds to the shape of his bones and eyeballs, firm enough that it holds his eyes all the way shut. Something settles over the weights, tickling against his forehead and cheekbones, and pulls tights all the way around his skull. Steve couldn't open his eyes if he tried, and light couldn't get through his blindfold if _it_ tried, and he relaxes further, losing a little bit of tension.

The burningfreezing brushes across his lips, pressing something velvety to his mouth. Steve opens carefully, exploring the foreign thing and the burningfreezing delicately with his tongue before accepting the thing into his mouth.

"Chew on these, sweetheart."

Steve does, and sensation explodes across his tongue. It's bitter and biting and sweet and smooth – He groans, not sure if he's feeling relief or more pain.

Something else is pressed against his lips, and he tosses his head, not wanting anything else that will hurt him.

"Just water, sweetheart, please. It will help, I promise."

A tiny trickle pours into his mouth, washing away the bittersweet, leaving only the bitingsmooth – Steve can't taste _anything_, and he collapses a little further, opening his mouth blindly for more. He gets a little more water, and the bitingsmooth amplifies, scrubbing his mouth clean.

As he gets his third mouthful, the burningfreezing rubs across his philtrum, leaving a thick trail of something sticky and waxy on his skin. He inhales in surprise, through his nose and open mouth – Immediately, both are filled with the bitingsmooth, stronger than he has yet to feel it, blocking out any other smell or taste that might exist in the whole world. It's not the most comfortable he's ever been, but it's better than before.

"Okay, Steve, I'm going to get you out of the suit now, okay? This is going to hurt, I know sweetheart, there isn't any way to make it not hurt, but I really need you not to hurt _me_, okay?"

_Tony. Don't hurt Tony._

The burningfreezing grabs him by the skin of his neck at the same time it splits him open along his spine – He moans and twitches – He doesn't scream and thrash –

He does scream when he is skinned from neck to waist, and all along his arms and hands, all at once. Any tears that manage to seep through his closed eyes will be absorbed by the blindfold, so Steve lets himself cry.

_Tony. Don't hurt Tony._

_"Oh God_, okay Steve, you're okay, it's over I'm done I'm stopping, babe, I'm stopping. Just breathe."

Steve obeys, because he doesn't know what else to do, and tries to fall away like he did before. His body from scalp to waist feels raw, scrubbed and scraped down to blood and muscle, but that's _better_, because blood and muscle don't _feel. _The dichotomy between his top half and bottom half is quickly becoming more unbearable than having his chest skinned had. Steve whines and kicks his legs, trying to free them from the barbed wire they're tangled in, but all he does is pull it tighter.

"Easy, sweetheart, easy."

The burningfreezing drags across the screaming nerves of his back and down to his legs, where it claws at his calves and frees him from a vice he didn't even know he was trapped in.

"Okay sweetie, one more. Last one I _promise_, take a deep breath for me, Steve, okay?"

Steve doesn't know what to do with that, how to respond, but it must not matter because the burningfreezing burrows into the flesh over his hips, and tears down, shredding his legs to ribbons as it passes.

Steve knows he isn't supposed to (though he can't quite remember why) but he can't stop himself from trying to run, from kicking and clawing and dragging his reluctant body along. He's panting and crying and he can _still hear_, so the sounds of his own desperation tear into his head and pulverize his brain, which only makes him cry louder, which only makes it hurt more -

Steve screams again when the burningfreezing appears out of nowhere, right in front of him when it used to be behind. It grabs him by the head, flat over his ears, and doesn't let him go even when Steve struggles and tosses his head.

It takes Steve a while to realize that his head isn't pounding quite so viciously anymore, that he can only hear the blood rushing through his ears and his breath sawing in and out of his lungs, but not the whines and cries spilling uncontrollably out of his throat. He sags forward into the burningfreezing holding him up, pathetically grateful for the support.

Something else touches him, in the center of his forehead - it feels like the burningfreezing, but immeasurably softer, and it's by far the nicest thing to happen to Steve in much longer than he can quite identify. Steve thinks he might even smile.

And immeasurable amount of time later, the burningfreezing lets him go, releasing his head before pulling away from his brow.

"I have earplugs, Steve, do you want them?"

Steve hesitates, trying to think, trying to remember why they might be good, why they might be bad - Wouldn't know where he was, _at all_, terrifying - Everything else has made it _better_, can't hurt - Hearing _hurts, _don't want to hurt anymore - If he concentrates, really hard, Steve thinks he can manage a nod, even tilt his head to the side...

"Good boy, thank you, sweetheart."

Something scratchy and soft slides into his ear and settles. The same happens on the other side. Steve waits, feeling the scratchysoft expand in his ear canal, stretching and pressing and then -

His ears feel clogged, uncomfortable, but all he can hear is his own breath and even that is dulled -

The burningfreezing starts to push and pull at him, tugging his shredding limbs around until he is curled on his side, and then pulling some more. His legs are lifted and then dropped over a biting corner into something with no particular sensation except _sortofwarm_.

The burningfreezing squirms under his shoulders and over his hips and he is pulled all the way into the nothing and -

Steve is _gone_. There is nothing where Steve is, no sound no sight no taste no smell no _touch_ - no sense of where his body is in space, no sense of temperature, no sense of the passage of time -

Steve would be panicked, except he is far from terror here, wherever he is. And he isn't alone - the burning freezing has faded to there-and-gone-again pin-pricks across his scalp, but it's here and it isn't leaving.

_Tony. He's here, and he isn't leaving. _

_Tony._

_Tony._

Steve remembers that that thought is a word, and it's a word that he knows how to say, and so he says it.

"Tony."

Steve isn't sure whether he was asleep and has now woken up, or if the serum suddenly did its job, healing him all at once. All he knows is that one minute, he's still floating absent from the world and throbbing with agony, and the next he's back, feeling hollow and oversensitive but _back_.

He tries to open his eyes and can't, tries to find the surface he's lying on, search for a weapon, and _can't_, because he's lying in a pool of water, not a bed. He reaches for his head, to remove the blindfold and ear plugs he has the vaguest memories of –

Something – some_one_ – grabs his hands, stops him even when he tugs against their hold. Steve smiles, relieved that Tony is still watching over him. He taps out "All clear" on the back of the hand holding his in Morse code. There is a moment of stillness, and his hands are released.

Tony lifts his head and helps him find his feet in the pool before his frantic and uncharacteristically clumsy fingers are bumping over Steve's face, trying to remove the ear plugs and the blind fold at the same time.

"Steve? Steve you're okay, you're awake, does it still hurt, you are okay, right-"

Steve laughs, and it twinges a bit, but no more than a normal headache might.

"I'm fine, Tony, I'm better."

Warm breath dances over Steve's cheek when Tony sighs in relief. "Good." The blindfold comes off, and Tony's thumb sweep over his left eye, cleaning away some of the gunk left by his crying jag. Steve blinks open his other eye, wincing when the dim lights of the pool prove too much for his still sensitive eyes. Tony lays his palm gently across Steve's eyes, and he leans into the touch eagerly.

"I'm glad," Tony murmurs. Steve smiles, and they stand as they are for several minutes, Tony gradually easing his hand away from Steve's eyes.

As soon as he can see clearly, Steve looks around the room, trying to figure out how long he'd been here. The Avengers' pool has no windows, and only the emergency lights are on. There's a whole pile of _stuff_ scattered at the edge of the pool – the earplugs and VapoRub, cuttings from a mint plant and some water bottles, a silk scarf and –

"Tea bags?" Steve asks, and Tony shrugs.

"Bruce was worried your eyes would start excreting some kind of pus thing, to try and 'clear out' whatever was making your eyes hurt. Plus, tears always leave your eyes dry and kind of crusty. Warm tea bags are good for clearing that stuff away, thought they can stain your skin a little bit." Tony smiles ruefully, trailing his finger tip across a line on Steve's face.

Steve spots his uniform, crumpled and scattered a few feet away – He looks down hurriedly and –

"Tony, why am I naked?"

Tony grins widely, leering a bit. "It's not my fault you go commando under the suit, Captain."

"Luckily," Natasha says from the doorway, "Some of us were prepared for Tony's lack of… boundaries."

She and Clint enter the pool, silent as always. Natasha carries a pile of cloth, and Clint's hands are piled high with bottles of juice and food.

Tony clambers out of the pool – of course, _he_ managed to remain dressed, even if it is in the skin-tight body suit he wears under the Iron Man armour (which is maybe more distracting than a naked-Tony would have been) – with a weird mixture of floppiness and grace. He fails to steal one of the towels that Natasha brought, but manages to grab some of the food that Clint brought by threatening to hug him while sopping wet.

Natasha holds a towel out for Steve, smiling but with her eyes politely averted as he pulls himself slowly out of the water. As soon as he grabs it from her, she turns her back – it doesn't escape Steve's notice that Tony and Clint have also arranged themselves so he has some measure of privacy as he dresses. Not that Tony hasn't already seen _everything_ while Steve was floating in the pool…

"How long was I out?"

Clint shrugs. "I dunno, like, eight hours or something."

"Just under six hours, Steve," Natasha corrects dryly, smacking Clint lightly on the back of the head.

Steve gapes at Tony. "You stayed in the pool with me for _six hours?_"

Tony rolls his eyes while Natasha and Clint make a very quick (but still discrete) exit.

"You make it sound so serious, Capsicle. It's not like I had anywhere better to be."

Steve had opened his mouth to reply, but now he just freezes, mildly surprised. Tony seems to realize the weight of what he'd said at the same time, because he starts to fidget uncomfortably, and opens his mouth, probably to talk until he's smothered his admission under the sheer weight of more words.

Steve doesn't want to dance around this _thing_ anymore – he's tired of the avoiding and the awkwardness and the _flirting_ that drives him to distraction. More than one person has described Tony as the unstoppable force to his immovable object, but Steve feels more like he's falling into Tony's inescapable gravity.

"Thank you," Steve says quickly before Tony can say anything, but it doesn't seem to be the right thing to say, because Tony frowns at him.

"You don't have to thank me for fighting in your corner, Steve," Tony replies testily. _He actually looks annoyed_, Steve marvels.

Steve can so easily imagine this dissolving into one of their fights, the fights neither of them means to happen but catch them unawares on an almost weekly basis, and he can't right now –

"No, that's not what I – I just meant you – You called me sweetheart," Steve says somewhat helplessly.

It completely derails Tony, who stands there blinking at Steve like he can't comprehend what Steve is saying, and suddenly Steve needs Tony to understand. _Steve_ needs to understand.

"Why, Tony? Why did you call me sweetheart, and baby, and _sweetie_ –"

"You were in _pain_, Steve!" Tony yells, throwing his hands up in the air. "You were _hurting_, and I _hated_ it, it's not supposed to happen not to you… I just wanted you to feel better," Tony finished with a grumble.

"You," Steve mutters, taking two steps forward, so he is only inches away from Tony, "are _impossible_." He winces, thinking he's gone too far, that he's revealed too much and now Tony is going to go running -

But Tony grins instead, leaning a little closer to Steve, looking up at him through his lashes.

_Oh,_ Steve thinks, _that look is _dangerous_._

"Not impossible," Tony purrs, smiling, "Just highly, _highly_, improbable."

Steve laughs, anticipation and joy sparking in his veins – he lifts a hand to curve around Tony's jaw, tilting his face up.

"No," Steve argues, still laughing, "_impossible_."


End file.
